The access to adult social care team is made up of experienced social workers and customer services officers who will offer advice and information about the full range of social and community activities and not just those traditionally associated with social care. The team will arrange for an assessment of your needs to be undertaken or undertake a visit that day if the need is critical. The team will also discuss with you all of the options available to help you and signpost you to other services if required.

Once referral has been made to the appropriate locality team and a social worker has been allocated, people will be able to contact them directly.

Report a safeguarding concern

If you are concerned about a child, young person or adult report it to Dudley Safeguarding.

What to do in an emergency - out of hours service

If you need to contact a social worker when offices are closed, and the matter is urgent you can telephone the out of hours emergency duty team on their new telephone number 0300 555 8574.

You will be asked to leave your name and a contact number and the duty social worker will return your call as soon as possible.

This service provides urgent cover between 5pm and 9am weekdays and 24 hours a day during weekends and on public holidays to deal with urgent work involving vulnerable children and adults, their families and carers.

If your situation is life-threatening dial 999

Text Relay Service

A new service is being introduced to help customers who are hard of hearing, profoundly deaf or have a speech impairment, contact the council easily.

The service, called text relay, will run alongside the existing minicom service before replacing it completely.

Carers

If your main reason for wishing to contact adult social care services is because you are seeking help for the person you care for or if you wish to request a carer's assessment you will need to contact the access to adult social care team or one of the specialist services as appropriate.